The Sword of Balance is a neutrally aligned silver short sword added in SLASH'EM. It has +2 to hit and +5 to damage against non-neutral monsters.

Strategy

This artifact is relatively weak, and mostly serves to make it more difficult for neutral characters in SLASH'EM to get a decent artifact weapon (a problem compounded by the multiple non-weapon sacrifice gifts that neutrals can receive). It only gets a modest damage bonus against non-neutrals, and is quite weak against the numerous always-hostile neutrals. The primary use is against the extremely tough werecreatures that appear in SLASH'EM including werepanthers, weretigers, and werespiders, though Werebane is clearly a better choice for this. Another possible use for it is for #twoweaponing, which is allowed for artifacts in SLASH'EM. Its silver damage is also quite useful in Gehennom, and its damage bonus makes it preferable to an ordinary silver saber. A weapon such as Skullcrusher or Doomblade is still preferable as a secondary, however.

Naming

Up until the latest version of SLASH'EM, this weapon could be #named in the manner of Sting or Orcrist. This was changed in the latest stable release[1], however, to be no longer possible.